Story Behind DIAMOND HEAD’s Track “AM I EVIL”

Most of us have listened to the song ‘Am I Evil’ by Metallica, this is a cover song by Metallica and the original one was performed by Diamond Head. Diamond Head is a 1970s heavy metal band This was formed in Stourbridge, England. The band is remembered as one of the leading members of New Wave Of British Heavy Metal Movement and is accepted by thrash metal bands such as Metallica and Megadeth as an important early influence. The name ‘Diamond Head’ came from a 1975 Phil Manzanera album that had a poster of in a room.

Originally the song is released in 1980 and also included in the Metal Movie “Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey.” According to Diamond Head co-founder/ guitarist Brian Tatler:-

“I can remember wanting to write a song heavier than Black Sabbath’s Symptom Of The Universe,” Tatler recalls. “So when I came up with that riff, I think we all said: ‘That’s good. We should work on that.’

“The song AM I EVIL evolved over a period of 18 months. We seemed to keep adding to it. We added the fast section, and then I must have come up with the intro – which was kind of based on Mars from The Planets suite [an orchestral work by Gustav Holst] – and that got sewn onto the beginning. I can remember coming up with the ending, and the very last thing to be written was the guitar solo section, where it changes key, and the tapping. I think we started it around 1978 and finished around 1980, when we went in to record the album [Lightning To The Nations, 1980].”

Diamond Head played their first concert at High Park school hall (10 February 1977) and sold 151 tickets for a forty-minute set of their own original material. The band has done many tours in European, American, and Asian countries. The band is known for their great influence on Metallica. However, the band has inactive many times due to internal conflicts between band members but sill it is on the road with having metal in hand and serving a influential music to the whole metal community.

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Tatler said in an interview with Metal Hammer:-

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Later In 2016, DIAMOND HEAD Says METALLICA Saved Them From Obscurity

“If it hadn’t been for Metallica, and Lars, and the songwriter’s royalties that me and Sean [Harris, former vocalist] get, I don’t know what we would’ve done. We’d have probably slipped into obscurity along with, I don’t know, Angel Witch or something. But they’ve managed to keep the money coming in for us and raise our profile by covering four Diamond Head songs on an album that’s sold over five million copies, that’s just…you can’t buy that sort of thing you know? I must’ve seen hundreds of articles where Lars is raving about Diamond Head, and it’s just brilliant, more power to ’em.”